


A Night to Sneak Out

by tustin2121



Series: Tustin2121's Pride Tales Anthology [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Bad Parenting, Boyfriends, Childhood Trauma, Closeted Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gay Male Character, High School, Inspired by Comment Thread, Inspired by Real Events, Lunar Eclipse, M/M, One Shot, Random & Short, Slice of Life, Sneaking Out, Texting, was supposed to be written in a few hours but now this is draft 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29269554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tustin2121/pseuds/tustin2121
Summary: Jacob desperately needs to sneak out to see his buddy and the lunar eclipse happening tonight. But, of course, it's never easy to hide things from overbearing parents... and doing so leaves quite the toll...[Rated T for language; T/W: effects of emotional abuse by a parent]
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Tustin2121's Pride Tales Anthology [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2105298
Kudos: 1





	A Night to Sneak Out

**Author's Note:**

> Shout outs to those who, like me, are hyper-aware of their surroundings because they grew up with a parent they try to avoid getting noticed by. This was inspired by a comment thread on a parenting YouTube video, where everyone was sharing how they had the aforementioned "power of awareness" and/or were often triggered whenever anyone yelled or made a sudden gesture because of parental trauma.
> 
> Note: Creator's Style, used for text message formatting, is entirely optional.

The phone screen illuminated Jacob’s face, as well as the rest of his dark bedroom. The fifteen-year-old boy’s dirty blonde hair was intertwined between his fingers as he watched another text message slide silently in: “They’re still not asleep?”

“no,” Jacob typed quickly into the phone, and sent the message off. He heard, from three rooms and a floor away from him, the telltale clink of a glass on the countertop and the characteristic close of a refrigerator door; Jacob’s mother was in the kitchen, getting her bedtime drink. Recalling that he had already heard his father go to bed — his specific gait moving up the staircase, with the creaking of certain steps giving away his movements — he added, “they should be soon tho”

His buddy Marco sent back a moment later: “What’s taking them so long tonight?”

Jacob adjusted himself, flattening the long pajamas he had on under his bed covers and making his elbows straddle the pillow, so he could type with both hands. “they had another fight over me earlier”

“They don’t know, do they?”

Jacob instinctively deleted his friend’s reply from his phone. And then deleted the whole message chain thus far, which was only the last five messages as deleting text messages was basically a nervous tic. “no it was about the test we got back today” “math class”

“What?!” “But you got the highest grade in the class!” “Mr. Anderson said you set the curve!”

“an 88 is abysmal” “according to my mother”

“But it was curved!”

Jacob deleted the message chain. “doesnt matter” “mother wants me to meet with mr anderson to know what I did wrong” “ and dad sai—”

Jacob halted his typing as he heard the first-second step creak sequence from the staircase in the hallway: mom’s gait. He closed his phone, plunging the room into darkness, and stuffed it under his chest where he lay. He put his head down sideways on the pillow, facing away from the door in some semblance of a sleeping position, and listened hard for the completion of his mother’s journey upstairs…

There was the creak from the seventh step… and now the twelfth-thirteenth-top step… The next sound in the sequence was the closing of the master bedroom door.

But that sound didn’t come. 

_Shit,_ she was coming to check on him, wasn’t she? Had she seen his phone glowing before he shut it off? His heart rate shot up, as he began practicing his slow breathing, his feigning of sleep. Sure enough, he heard his room door open: no knock, just entering, as per usual. The far wall lit up with a beam of light from the hallway and Jacob closed his eyes.

Jacob’s butt clenched under the covers. She was uncharacteristically quiet, and consequently he didn’t know where she was in his room, and he didn’t dare look. It was freaking him out. It took all his effort to not flinch horribly when he suddenly felt her fingertips brush his hair. _The hell was she doing?_ She ran her fingers gently, lovingly, through his hair, mumbling something under her breath: “Oh Lord, please… please bring my baby back to me… drive out the hateful demons that possess him these days and bring me back the child who loved me so much when he was little…”

Jacob was outright offended by this. He held down the sudden anger that exploded inside him, the desperate need to shout and rage obscenities at her. He needed to get her to go away… before it was too much to hold back… 

It seemed like she didn’t want to wake him. So, he groaned, and started moving, like he was being awakened by her stupid ramblings. Her hand recoiled instantly as he adjusted his head on the pillow, turning over to lay on his other cheek. He let out a little theatrical groan as he forced himself to become still again, though his pounding heart was making that difficult.

He heard her mumble some more prayers to herself, and then he saw the light level in the room diminish. She must have gone out into the hallway, _of course_ not closing his door all the way, like she _never_ fucking does. He didn’t dare move anymore, though, when there was a clear line of sight right to his face. Soon, he heard the sweet, sweet sound of the master bedroom door closing. And he waited tensely for the four minutes it took for the automatic lights in the hallway to time out and turn off.

First thing’s first: he opened his eyes and saw, yep, she left his door ajar; he could see into the hallway. He angrily but silently got out of bed, moved to the door, turned the knob, and slowly inched it into the wall until it was all the way closed, then turned the handle back to neutral. If he had just pushed the door closed, or had just released the handle, it would have made sounds; no sounds were allowed.

Now with the safety net of having two doors between him and his parents again, he gingerly laid down on his groaning bed again and grabbed his phone. He cleared whatever he was writing before and typed: “idk wtf just happened but she came into my room and touched my hair. WTF??

At once, Marco stated typing out messages. “Thank god you’re okay.” “When you stopped typing suddenly I thought you were caught.” “Wtf did she do to you?!”

Jacob was listening intently to the silence. He heard his dad cough. He heard the water pipes run and stop, run and stop; mom was in the master bathroom doing her nighttime routine. He nervously, absentmindedly deleted all of the messages in the chain, even the new ones as they came in. “idk” “idk wtf that was” “ill tell you once were out of here” “mothers getting to bed now”

“So how much longer then? Thirty minutes?”

“she usually falls asleep fast” “10 might do it, but i really want to know shes asleep so maybe 20”

“The eclipse has started already.” “My dad just asked me why I haven’t left yet.”

“because your parents trust you and you tell them everything”

“I don’t tell them EVERYTHING” “I haven’t told them about us”

Jacob deleted messages. Marco was still typing, but Jacob started typing anyway. “you discus ur feelings w them constantly” He deleted the message after he sent it. “you willingly tell them what happens at school” He deleted the message after he sent it. “your actually considering coming out to them” He deleted this message _before_ he sent it. Marco had stopped typing. “i would never want to do that with my family” “id hate having them know so much about me”

“I know”

“that’d give them too much leverage” “mother would use that in a heartbeat” “i dont need to give them more ammo”

Jacob stopped typing and looked over his messages for a moment, wiping his eyes. He then promptly deleted them all one by one, and sent: “right. im getting out of here” “meet you outside in ten”

“See you soon”

Jacob sighed as he cleared the message history. He plugged his phone in to charge and set it on his bed stand. It couldn’t come with him if he wanted anonymity; phones can be traced, after all.

Jacob silently opened his bedroom door an inch and listened intently; he could hear his mother’s snores now. He dropped onto his stomach and wriggled carefully along the carpeted hallway floor towards where the automatic light switch was on the far wall. This alone took roughly four minutes to do, just so he was sure his movements wouldn’t trigger the motion sensor. He reached up from below the sensor’s field of vision and gingerly toggled the switch to the middle ‘off’ position. If he had applied too much pressure, it would go too far and snap to the ‘on’ position and turn on the light. He braced himself, and waved his hand in front of the sensor: the light did not turn on.

That obstacle overcome, he got up and snuck back to his room door and closed it quietly. He then went to the staircase and began his slow descent. He only stood on the extreme end of each step, his feet pressing against the wall as he stepped down. If he stepped in the middle of the stairs, creaking was likely to ensue; the edges of the stairs were most well supported. He also made sure to skip over the twelfth, seventh, and second steps, as those were the most likely to creak. He held hard to the banisters so as not to lose his balance; this would have made for a bizarre sight for anyone watching: a lanky teenager stretched wide across the staircase like a spider carefully and deliberately walking across its web. Once he reached the first step of the staircase, instead of stepping down to the floor at the bottom of the stairs (which again was prone to creaking), he stepped sideways through the doorway to the right, into the carpeted family room.

Now that he was downstairs, he grabbed his shoes from the coat closet and went around to the mudroom in the back of the house. He went to the window and lifted the top corner curtain to double-check that the wires running to the window’s alarm sensor were still shorted; he had done this bit a few months ago, while his parents were out, and he still wasn’t certain how discoverable or long-lasting it was. He braced and slid open the window; the alarm did not go off. Taking a few calming breaths, he climbed through the window feet first, lowering himself out onto the ground outside, and shut the window again.

He breathed a moment more, his heart racing. He looked to the back alley to see Marco — lanky, dark-haired, tan-skinned, handsome, and tense as fuck. He was perched on his stunt bike, hiding ineptly behind a tree near where Jacob had told him to be, ready to ride away at a moment’s notice.

Jacob began his winding trek across the yard, making sure to stay out of the line of sight of both the master bathroom window and the two security cameras which covered the back door on one side of the house and the driveway on the other. After his circuitous route to the back alley, he double backed towards where Marco watched him silently. Upon reaching him, he straddled the back tire of Marco’s bike, and whispered in his ear, “A few inches to the right next time. You’re supposed to stay out of sight of the window.” Jacob pointed out said window, and Marco nodded nervously, too scared to speak.

Jacob stood crouching on the two back trick pegs of Marco’s bike and wrapped his arms around Marco’s chest and neck, resting his chin on his shoulder. This was the cue for Marco to start pedaling away as quickly and quietly as he could. Jacob felt his anxiety start to fall away, like it was chained to the house behind him, and each layer was pulling the next off after it. 

As they turned a corner, finally moving out of sight of the house, he took a moment to breathe in the smell of Marco’s skin: a prickly waft of lingering axe body spray mixed with the day’s dried sweat and dipped in the night air breezing past them. It was like heaven distilled into an olfactory sensation. Jacob let out a giddy exhale, a silent laugh of freedom. Marco smiled in response, taking one hand off the handlebars momentarily to run his fingers through Jacob’s hair. Jacob in turn tilted his head and kissed the golden-tan skin on Marco’s neck, right beneath his mole. “Hi,” he said simply.

“Hi,” Marco grinned, keeping his eyes on the path in front of him. “How was tonight’s escape attempt?”

“Uneventful, thankfully,” Jacob replied. He waited for a straightaway, where a little wobble could be corrected for, and stood up, towering over Marco, keeping his hands on Marco’s shoulders for balance and letting the wind waft through his face and upper body. He breathed deeply, taking in the smell of freedom that permeated the night air whipping past.

They turned a corner to the left, and then turned right into the park. Marco pedaled harder as he went up a hill, then coasted down another towards an open grassy area in the distance. He turned off the road and into the bumpy grass, his speed slowing rapidly to a crawl and then a stop. Jacob got down and Marco dismounted, and the two began walking slowly towards a distant hill with a tree on it, Marco’s bike clicking quietly between them.

“So,” Marco said, “Your mom _touched_ your _hair_ tonight?”

“Oh, right…” Jacob said, his demeanor darkening, “So I’m texting with you and I hear her come upstairs. Of course, I put on an act like I’m sleeping. And she comes into my room all creepy-like, and I’m afraid she’s gonna start strangling me or something.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Marco retorted in disbelief, “Your mom doesn’t hate you like that.”

Jacob scoffed, “You tell me that next time I’m at the business end of the Wooden Spoon again, okay?”

“Sorry, sorry…” Marco sighed.

Jacob huffed, folding his arms resolutely, “So, she creeps in like a fucking murderer and starts playing with my hair while I’m _’trying to sleep’_. She starts fucking praying some shit like ‘Please, god, make my child love me again…’, like _Bitch, please_ , I never fucking loved your wicked ass.” Jacob kicked at a pinecone, “I learned when I was _six_ not to trust that bitch with anything. And she’s all over here like ‘Jesus, drive the demons out of my child’ as if fucking Mephistopheles over here is causing me to get B’s.”

Marco stared sadly as Jacob angrily kicked a few more pinecones across the lawn. They had reached the tree. Marco leaned the bike against it and turned to Jacob, ready to point at the moon and introduce the ongoing eclipse. But Jacob wasn’t done fuming, and his voice was cracking like he was crying now.

“It’s fucking impossible to please the fuckers!” Jacob spat, his voice two octaves higher now, to the point that Marco felt he had to shush him, “My mother thinks I’m too skinny while my dad thinks I’m too fat. She keeps guilting me about not having a girlfriend, while he keeps guilting me about not being in any sports at school. ‘I _know_ you sabotaged your tryouts!’ ‘Your teacher called and said you lashed out at her _in class?!_ ’ ‘You have to stand up for yourself against these bullies!’ _‘Oh, your principal called and said you were in a fight?! Why?!’_ ‘Don’t you _dare_ talk back to me or you get the spoon again!!’ ‘Lord, where did I go _wrong_ with him?!’” On that last one, Jacob broke down crying, dropping to his knees in the grass, covering his face, and wiping his eyes. 

Marco sighed. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a travel packet of tissues. Then he knelt down next to Jacob and wrapped his arms around him in a hug, pulling him close, rubbing his back, and planting a kiss in his hair. After a moment, Jacob hugged him back, crying into his shoulder.

“That’s right, just let it all out…” Marco whispered. With his face nestled in Jacob’s hair, Marco looked up at the moon, the reason they had risked life and limb to come out here. It was full tonight, save for a shadow growing steadily from the corner of it. Of course, the moon was not as important as Jacob, but Marco had kind of been hoping this would be a _nice_ evening out for once.

Jacob pulled away, his hands and face covered in tears and snot. Marco readily held up a tissue from the packet, which made Jacob chuckle as he took it. “How do you _always_ have these?” Jacob asked between sniffles.

“Because you _always_ need a good cry every time I see you,” Marco said, taking a tissue and wiping Jacob’s cheeks, “without fail.” Jacob sobbed again, and blew his nose. Marco smiled and gently directed Jacob’s attention to the sky finally. “The eclipse started.”

Jacob turned around and looked at the moon hovering over the trees surrounding the park. “Oh wow, that shadow?”

“Yep,” Marco grinned, laying down in the grass, “That’s the Earth’s shadow passing over the moon. As the shadow advances, the moon will turn redder, because the sunlight is refracting off the earth’s atmosphere. Like a sunset.”

Jacob laid next to Marco, still wiping his eyes. For several minutes, they laid there, watching the slow advance of the shadow across the moon. Jacob continued to sniffle and wipe tears from his face. He found himself less watching the moon as contemplating his problems. He asked for another tissue, which Marco supplied.

Jacob sat up and blew his nose again. “Man… why couldn’t I have been born into your family? Why did I end up with the shit family?”

Marco smirked, “If you were born into my family, we couldn’t be dating. You know, being brothers and all.” Jacob chuckled. “Besides, my family isn’t perfect. My mom and dad fight sometimes.”

Jacob scoffed, “Your parents don't fight; they have disagreements over what to make for dinner. My dad yells at my mother about money problems and never having any respect, all while my mother yells back about how lazy and loud he always is. Then they both yell at me if I so much as make a peep about either of them.”

“Well, um…” Marco offered, “My dad calls things gay as an insult sometimes. Mom yells at him for it.”

Jacob laughed derisively, “That’s a hell of a sight better than my family. Mine will probably send me to conversion therapy if they ever find out…”

“Uh, let’s… Let’s not…?” Marco said nervously, pulling Jacob down onto his chest and squeezing him around his arms and chest protectively, “Let’s not even think about that right now… please…?”

Jacob smiled, and lifted one of Marco’s hands to his lips to kiss. Marco caressed his chest, and let him up. 

They got comfortable again, Jacob using Marco’s belly as a pillow, both of them staring at the sky, their hands entwined in the grass. Jacob closed his eyes and felt the rhythm of Marco’s heartbeat, the slow rise and fall of his breathing. This was paradise. This was perfect. This was everything. What did he do to deserve this happiness? Marco could be sharing this moment with anyone else. Why is he wasting it on him?

Jacob turned his head to look up at Marco’s face. The moonlight, so bright before, was slowly diminishing. “Mark,” he said, and Marco lifted his head to look at him, “… … Why do you put up with me…?” Marco looked confused and upset. “You could have anybody… Anybody who’d what you at school… Somebody who doesn’t have to sneak out all the time… Somebody who doesn’t cry every time you see them… Somebody who you don’t _fear for_ every time they stop typing…”

“What are you talking about?” Marco asked, concerned, as he sat upright, making Jacob sit up as well.

“Just… why me?” Jacob said, staring at the grass in front of him, “Why do you _like_ me? I don’t understand why you put up with all of my shit all the time. If I wasn’t the only… ya’know… _gay_ guy at school, would you still be with me? I don’t deserve you. You could have _anybody else!_ ”

“Stop. _Stop,_ Jake.” Marco demanded. He moved over to him and grabbed his face with both hands, lifting it gently to look at him. “Stop. I… I love you, Jake.”

Jacob averted his eyes, “Y-you don’t mean that…”

“Yes, I do,” Marco said firmly, “You’re my best friend. You’re my secret lover. You _deserve_ to be treated better than the way they treat you at home.” Marco let go of Jacob’s face and gently caressed his shoulders. “I’ve seen you _away_ from their influence, and you're better than them. You’re smart, you’re kind, you’re creative, you have quite the dramatic flair…”

“Stop,” Jacob said, averting his eyes and blushing.

“…you’re considerate of others all the time, when you set your mind to something, you’re so passionate about it…”

“Stop, please,” Jacob sniffed, trying not to cry again.

“You are worth it, Jake. You are worth every hardship. And no matter what your parents say, you are valid, and you deserve so much better.”

Jacob decided to shut him up in the only way he knew he could: he leaned in and gave him a long, deep, tender, tear-stained kiss. Marco wrapped his arms around Jacob, and Jacob slid his hands up along his back, kissing deeply and wanting nothing more than to be here with one another. It was several long moments before they came up for air. They touched heads and smiled softly at each other.

“I mean it, you know,” Marco whispered, “I’m not just fishing for a kiss.” Jacob chuckled. “And I will keep saying it until you get the message through your thick skull, alright?” Jacob nodded slightly. “'Cause if there’s one thing that is—”

Jacob suddenly pulled away and looked to the left, like a cat suddenly on high alert. Marco stopped talking immediately; he knew what that face meant.

Jacob scanned the tree and the hilltop behind Marco. He had just seen something flash from the direction of Marco’s bike. The bike, he realized, that Marco left leaning against the tree _in plain sight of the road_. He would never have let him do that if he had been thinking straight at the time. Then he noticed the grass at the crest of the hill had odd illuminations flickering across it: a flashlight. Then Jacob heard the soft crunching… the crunching growing louder… “Someone’s coming!” Jacob hissed, “Hide!”

“What?!” Marco breathed in alarm, spinning around to look for himself.

“Hide!” Jacob repeated as he rolled towards the tree.

“Where?!” Marco asked a little louder, looking completely discombobulated.

Jacob had already somehow managed to flatten himself against the tree, sidling to the left to keep it between him and the interloper. Marco stood up to join him when he was hit with the beam of the flashlight.

“Ah-ha! The bike _does_ have an owner!” a gruff male voice said. Marco shielded his eyes from the bright beam of light as the source of it crested the hill. A plump police officer waddled into view. He lowered his flashlight so it hit Marco’s body but didn’t blind him. “Evening, Martínez-ito.”

Marco shifted his hand to look at the officer. That hand then slid over his hair and down to the back of his neck as he sighed at the grass below him. “Good evening, Officer Anderson.”

“I take it this is your bike?” the officer asked, flashing his light at it.

“Yes, sir,” Marco replied dutifully, not meeting the officer's eyes.

“Whatcha up to this evening?” The officer asked, scanning around at the surrounding hillside with his flashlight.

“Uh,” Marco replied sheepishly, “Watching the eclipse tonight.” He pointed over his shoulder.

The officer looked up at the moon, even pointing his flashlight up at it like it would help illuminate it. “Huh,” he said, “There’s a pretty big chunk out of it, isn’t there?”

“Yeah, it’s… going to be a total eclipse starting in like twenty minutes or so,” Marco replied, trying to keep a distraction going, “See the penumbral eclipse… uh…”

But the officer wasn’t listening. He was sweeping the flashlight across other trees, around the grass, right past where Jacob hid behind the big tree. “Didn’t I tell you before that the park closes at dusk?” he said offhandedly, cutting Marco off his explanation.

“Uh…” Marco shuffled his feet.

“Do yer parents know yer out here?”

“Y-Yes, sir,” Marco replied.

The officer pointed his light in Marco’s direction, “Do his?”

Marco, without thinking, glanced over at where Jacob was hiding, fatally giving away his position. Jacob’s heart sank. Marco stalled: “Uh… w-who? W-who, sir?”

“Whoever you were talkin’ to before I arrived,” the officer said, his flashlight pointed directly at the tree now. Jacob heard the officer move closer.

“I-I wasn’t talking with anyone, sir,” Marco said quickly, a little too eagerly. The officer was approaching closer, and Jacob started rotating around the tree away from him.

“So you were tellin’ _yourself_ to hide then? And you didn’t?” the officer asked as he jumped around the tree… and found no one. Jacob sidled sideways further still.

Marco sounded constipated, “Sir, can you please not— _WATCH—!!_ ”

But the warning was too late, and Jacob crashed right into Marco’s bike and toppled over it, his pant leg catching in the chains, collapsing hard over it into the grass, and getting one of the stunt pegs right to the shin. “ _FUCK!!_ ” Jacob shouted as he hit the dirt hard with his hands catching the fall. Marco dived for his boyfriend to help disentangle him. Jacob writhed on the ground, holding his shin and thighs in pain. And a moment later he had to close his eyes hard to avoid the officer’s flashlight as well.

“Aw, fuck,” the officer spat, lowering the light out of Jacob’s eyes, “You’re the Mitchell kid, aren’t ya? Shit.” The officer laughed weakly, “You really know how to pick ‘em, don’t you, Martínez?”

Marco gave the officer a weak smile as he helped Jacob roll up his pant leg. Marco ran a hand over the impact site; Jacob’s shin looked undamaged.

Jacob cringed and breathed heavily from the pain of the impact. Thankfully, it was lessening slowly, and now only his shin hurt like hell. “I think I’ll be okay…” he said. Marco leaned in to kiss his hair, but Jacob jolted away. “What are you doing?!”

Marco looked taken aback. “Kissing it and making it better?”

“Not in front of him!” Jacob snapped, indicating the officer.

The officer laughed heartily. “Don’t worry, kid. I ain’t gonna out ‘cha. I know how it is. Martínez-ito knows too.”

Jacob blinked, and turned to Marco. “What?”

Marco laughed nervously. “Uh, long story…”

“So, uh,” the officer continued, “I take it yer mom ain’t got a clue about you being out here, Mitchell?” Jacob shook his head fearfully. “I figured. I don’t wanna be the one to tell her neither. Heard enough horror stories about her from my husband. Nothin’ but A-pluses, huh?”

Jacob clearly must be processing information more slowly because of the pain in his shin… Did he really hear what he thought he did just now?

“Now, I know you boys want to see the eclipse and all,” the officer was saying, “but you can’t be out here at night, ya’hear? Park closes at dusk. What if someone else found you two out here? Prolly wouldn’t be as forgiving as me. I’d hate to see Mrs. Mitchell have another reason to yell at ‘cha, boy…”

“But,” Marco asked hesitantly, “Where else are we supposed to see the eclipse?”

“With curfew, you’ll have to do it from home, kid. Do like I did at your age and watch the sky from the roof. Prolly a better view up there anyway.”

Marco and Jacob exchanged looks. Certainly not the roof of Jacob’s house, but Marco’s maybe…

“Now, I trust I don’t have to drive you home in my cruiser, Martínez?” the officer asked. Marco shook his head. “Then get on outta here, and we'll keep this meeting between us.” And he waved them off with his flashlight.

Marco stood up and helped Jacob to his feet. Marco picked up his bike and examined it for damage, while Jacob gaped at the police officer.

“Your… Your ‘husband’?!” Jacob said, mouth agape, having just finished processing this information.

“Yeah, what’s it to ya, kid?” The officer said gruffly. “He’s got ya in his class, don’t he?”

“Mr. Anderson is…” Jacob blinked blankly.

“Hey,” the officer leaned forward conspiratorially, “If things get to be too much at home, or… if things go south altogether… Just find to my husband at school, okay? Or drop by the precinct and ask for me, either one. We’ll try and help best we can, okay? We know a thing or two about what it’s like, growing up like you, in a small town like this…” Marco approached with his bike and the officer turned to him as well, “Same goes for you, yeah?”

“I know,” Marco nodded, “You told me already. I, uh… I’m trying to find a good time to tell my parents.”

“That’s good,” the officer smiled, giving him a hearty pat on the shoulder, “Proud’a ya. Now git.” He waved them both off again.

Jacob and Marco started walking back towards the road, Marco’s bike once again between them, and Jacob limping a bit.

“You think you can ride again? Or do you wanna pedal maybe?” Marco asked, indicating Jacob’s limp when Jacob looked confused.

“Oh, uh, I can ride, but let’s hit the pavement first.” Jacob turned and looked back at the tree, and the officer who was double-checking everywhere around it for any more strays. “W-What just happened back there? Did _you_ know our math teacher was gay?!”

Marco chuckled and laid a comforting hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “Yeah, they’re family friends. They come over for dinner occasionally.”

“And you didn’t _tell_ me?!”

“Mom made me promise not to tell _anyone_. Mr. Anderson isn’t allowed to tell kids either. Parents might complain and call for him to be fired. The school already got a lot of angry letters when he started up the GSA. The Gay-Straight Alliance? Maybe you should join!”

“No,” Jacob said at once, “No, no, definitely not, no. You can’t make me.”

Marco laughed as they reached the pavement and mounted the bike. Marco started pedaling, Jacob gripping his shoulders tightly to maintain balance. As the wind whipped past him again, Jacob felt something well up inside him, like a knot in his throat. Things seemed… almost hopeful, for once…

**Author's Note:**

> If Jacob's situation has affected you, consider donating to [The Trevor Project](https://www.thetrevorproject.org/). The TrevorLifeline is a hotline that helps LGBTQ+ youths, like those in Jacob's situation, when things get to be too much for them. I'm not affiliated with the project, it's just my favorite LGBTQ+ Charity.


End file.
